Thursday, July 30, 2015

Why are we more concerned about the death of a lion named Cecil than we are about seeing a human child separated into parts in a pie plate? Matt Walsh suggests that it is because we’ve built up a reservoir of outrage and someone gets the brunt of it. But why a lion instead of a baby?

It starts to make more sense when we see the murderous spirit that runs through both. This isn’t a case where people want to murder children, but they don’t want to murder a lion. This is a case where people want to murder children and they want to murder a lion hunter. Their thought is a fetus gets in the way of a woman’s happiness, so destroy the fetus. Their thought is also a lion hunter kills one country’s national pet, so kill the lion hunter. But along with the people who have that murderous spirit, you also have people who have a love for life. The lion hunter did something he shouldn’t and the lion is one of God’s creatures, so the people who love life end up siding with those with a murderous spirit in the situation with Cecil the lion, but when it comes to Another Boy, whose parts are being sorted in a pie pan, those who love life are on the opposite side of the issue from those with a murderous spirit.

But that’s not the whole story. Maybe we aren’t calling for the lion hunter to be killed with a dentist drill. Maybe we aren’t separating and selling body parts or defending those who do. But what about our attitude toward the abortion providers? As the various videos showing the activities at Planned Parenthood have been released, I’ve seen a few comments along the lines of tearing the abortion providers apart and seeing how they like it. People want to think that is righteous indignation, since they are defending the innocent, but is it, or is it that same murderous spirit that calls for the death of the lion hunter and the death of the unborn?

It is something we should consider carefully. It is something we should repent of, if we see it in ourselves. The Bible says that murderers don’t have eternal life (1 John 3:15), so if we feel hatred toward abortion providers, or Democrats, or Republicans, or whoever, we ought to consider carefully whether we are saved or not. Jesus is still saving sinners, so it isn’t too late…yet. But we do need to make sure that we’ve accepted Christ before it is too late.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

The first time I read The Trail of Blood was when I was still a child. I remember sitting at the kitchen table as I was reading it and talking to my mother about the Christian martyrs and how they refused to deny Jesus Christ, even when facing torture or the killing of their families. She said, “We might face that someday.” At the time, my thought was, “What a great way to die!”

About thirty years have passed since that conversation and my thoughts have changed. It’s still a great way to die, to be numbered with those who have shown the world to be unworthy of them by staying true to Jesus, even unto death, and to depart this life in a way similar to the death of our dear Savior. Let’s just say that my previous experiences with pain have caused me not to look forward to a martyr’s death.

But if recent events are any indication, it is far more likely today that we will suffer or be killed because of our stand for Jesus than it was thirty years ago. Thirty years ago, you would’ve had to have left the United States to have much of a chance of dying a Christian martyr’s death. Today, you can hardly mention the name of Christ without someone accusing you of hate. In online conversations, I’ve had people curse me. I don’t mean they used profanity. One woman who didn’t like something I said, said that it was a terrible decision that my mother didn’t get an abortion.

When people begin to think that people who hold certain beliefs shouldn’t be alive, they’re already committing murder in their hearts and the next step is for them to take up a weapon to strike the fatal blow. As some have pointed out, these are people who have no hope for the future. Even though some of them attend “church,” they don’t have faith. They have no hope of eternal life, because they don’t really believe it exists or they don’t believe it is attainable for them. Their lives can be summed up with four letters, YOLO (you only live once). When your whole life if built around the belief that you have to do whatever it takes to make you feel the best you can now, because you only live once, you’re going to do everything you can to push those who make you feel bad out of the way. You don’t want people telling you that you are evil, because that makes you feel bad, so force those people to shut up. Use the Government to do it if you can, but if you can’t, then use other methods, because you only live once, right?

Contrast that with what the writer of Hebrews said about the martyrs in Hebrews 11:35 says about the martyrs of the past, by faith, “others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection.” (And this was in reference to people who had not seen the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.) What a difference the belief in the deliverance of God and the resurrection of the dead makes. People who realize that they can have life after this life have a very different perspective. If I suffer in this life, that’s okay, because this life is just the beginning. If obedience to God means I can’t enjoy the things people lust for in this life, that’s okay, because God has promised far greater things for those who obey him. If someone gets in the way of my happiness, I don’t like it, but I don’t wish them dead, because happiness in this life is such a small thing compared to what is available to us in the life to come.

So, how do we resolve this problem? If someone who hates Jesus kills me, that’s a good death, but it would be better to reach them for Christ. What message should we be communicating to these people? Should we stop telling people that immoral behavior is wrong? Should we teach nothing but “the love of God?” No. It got them killed, but none of the great preachers in the Bible ignored the topic of sin. And what many people mean when they talk about teaching on the love of God is that we shouldn’t tell people that they are sinful and just tell them that God loves them and wants them to go to heaven. “Don’t judge,” they say. No, to focus only on God’s wrath or to focus only on God’s forgiveness won’t help anyone.

The message that people need to hear is the message of John the Baptist and the message of Jesus. “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Think about that message for a moment. You can’t repent if you don’t know you are a sinner. But notice also that it is a message of hope for the coming kingdom. There would be no reason for people to repent if they couldn’t be part of the kingdom of heaven. The message the people who believe YOLO need to hear is that they are sinners, but if they repent and put their faith in Jesus, they can have hope for the future.

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Jesus said, “Love your enemies. Do good to them that hate you.” (Luke 6:27) This is something I struggle with. It isn’t that I don’t desire to follow the command of Jesus. My problem is that I don’t know how to do it. In the past few weeks, I’ve encountered a number of enemies. There’s no question but that they hate me. Why? Because I have voiced my belief in God and his Word, and my belief that homosexuality is a sin. Many of these people were both homosexual and atheists who not only argued against my interpretation of the facts, they wouldn’t accept the facts and they became angry and resorted to profanity and name-calling. How do we love people like that?

I encountered these people online. Sometimes, I wonder whether I should engage in online conversations, but the Internet is where people are. If we’re not talking to people on Facebook, we’re ignoring a very large segment of the population that the Lord has sent us to reach. But online conversations are difficult. People read a comment and they file it away as “This person agrees with me” or “This person disagrees with me.” The people we encounter don’t tell us the problems they are facing, but that is one of the ways we love people, by providing a solution to their problems. It does us no good to tell people we love them. Love is an action and when we do it, people know it. Love has broken through the hard shell of many enemies. But I don’t see a way to love through the Internet.

Does that mean we should just give up? Should we just let the conversation play out without adding our voice to the mix? I’m reminded of Paul on Mars hill. When he spoke, there’s no evidence to suggest that this was anything other than a public forum that included people Paul had never met. He introduced them to Jesus and called for them to forsake idol worship. Some mocked him. Some delayed making a decision. But some believed.

Loving our enemies is something we all need to do, but sometimes, the only thing we can do is inform them of the truth. Some will mock us, telling us that our God was made up by man. Some will call us names and use curse word and profanity. Some will call what we say hatred. But I’m confident that the Holy Spirit will use our words to reach a few. We may not see the results directly, but some will listen.

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About Me

I am the author of both novels and a non-fiction. Stop by my blog, Timothy’s Thoughts, where we mostly talk about plot elements, characters and other things to do with writing fiction, but occasionally get off on other topics, such as platform development and leadership. I even talk about current events or my personal life, from time to time, but mostly we talk about fiction.